Hair greying sharp bark saying he’s in pain
Milky eyes hardly have any sight left
I lift him up the stairs and back into the house
My hand slips just a bit rubbing a sore spot
A gentle nip reminds me not to touch it
Then comes the apologetic course tongue lick

Soft soothing words whisper a token of my spoken
And unbroken affection
The end is near and I can hear the congestion
Breathing more labored so I pet him gently
Making sure that he can hear and see me
Comforting him until he finds oblivion

The war is coming rising rivers of dark red blood will be spilt, stop
Innocent lives spent in the pursuit of greed, glory, and hate, stop
Machine gun turret, grenades, poison gas, planes, submarines, stop
Bullet, blades, blood, enemy-entrenched, death in the mud, stop
Children becoming men before their time dying on your dime, stop
Next war, with oh so many new ways to terminate life, stop
New technology, modern mass media telling us how to feel, stop
Building bombs to **** one another leaving behind crying mothers, stop
Bigger bomb tap that atom go out and get those yellow *******, stop
Pandora’s box opened up with bitter metal bearing baring hate, stop
Two cities decimated, burning the earth, Heaven cries black tar tears, stop
The cycle continues from war to war the tragedy never seems to end, stop
Human horror, I am begging for the love of all humanity please, stop

Release me from your Trinity.
I did not volunteer to serve
a severely disturbed deity.
I do not sit resigned
to some petulant being
defined as the divine
with a split personality,
and a magical mind.

Check out the lights
Let transcend the heights
Of my own imagination
Past garbled salt water
Part boiling mermaid daughters
Asinine aliens
Magic beings
Mystics and monks
Praying to
Diaphanous demons
A Virile and vain vampire
Dating a sparkling tree spirit
A wretched wizard
Hanging with Witty Warlocks
And Witches in weird wardrobes
A Wicked werewolf
Courting
Alluring angels
Naughty Gnomes
Teasing tiny
Pretty pixies and
Frightened fairies
An Unlucky unicorn
Being chased by
Dangerously daring dark dragon
Greedy goblins grabbing gleaming gold
Goofy Gargoyles
Glad handing
Gorgeous goddesses
And a cranky Kraken
Staring at a sickeningly sultry siren
Sitting on a salty sea stone
Trying to eat an enlightened elf
A leprechaun laughing
At a ***** hobbit
Who is trying to ****
A hairy and hostile dwarf
All stream lined in time
Put on a perfect pause
Cause they don’t do anything
They are just fake figurines
Cardboard cutouts
Pretty poems and portrait
Painting in my mysterious mind

I am a fool,
prince or pauper
standing proper
in time.

I remember my place
how this current season tastes,
sounds, and feels
but forget how it will
end.

In spring I think
The flowers will bloom
eternally.
It never occurs to me
that Summer will be
right around the corner.

In summer I expect to sweat
get a buzz cut because
I hate hot hair
not thinking
time’s shrinking
will see me sinking in
to summers end
where fall begins.

Fall finds me believing
I will see leaves fleeing
Still falling from bare trees
that sit squarely
before me
though obviously empty.

Winter is a desert.
Nothing warm;
Just cold storms
that make me shiver
forgetting the past
and the future.
I only feel the frigid present.

I never think about or see
the seasonal transitioning.
I only know the now.

They split
the splendor,
hurt mother nature,
grabbed and slaughtered
her bright red, and green
bedded daughter.

They cut down
the tall brown,
broke with burning blasts
the bulging bottom
of the beige mountains
that were snowcapped.

They painted in plain mortality,
stained that verdant quality
of waving grasslands
that expands
before the curious swarm
of a young humanity.

They cracked the crust
beneath us
causing the gas
to come rushing up
and poison us.

So, now we weep
salty sea tears
tainted by oil spills
and dead otter bodies.

Till, at last
when all those
tragedies have passed
when stillness reigns
in our place
we are disgraced
and displaced
by our self-inflicted
genocide.

In my younger days
there was pain
and a rage
that would raze
the world away;

A deep injection
of sorrow infections,
coupled with
disappointment,

and when I erupted
I kept almost all
of my volcanic outbursts
to the form of exercise
or other means of
self-hurt,

because I did not
want to cause
anyone
the same
sickness
of anguish
that I suffered.

Whether it was
waking in tears,
punching solid objects,
or working out
to the point of
exhaustion,
purging my stable
of demons,
what a
painful exorcism.

Now,
I am healthier,
and I only engage in
a less brutal regimen
in comparison
to deal with my issues.

I was lost in the grandeur of my name
Set upon a stony path
Full of thorns and hypocrites
A weighty road with walkers
Trampling over flowers and thickets
Thick with tricks
Blood boiling on golden bricks
Barbed wired fences
Flags and floats paraded
Common sense
Ignored
Deplored
Considered a bore
But before the end
Maybe I will find the truth

Isn’t she great
That cow
That spits sand from her utters
Fat and flaccid bovine
Munching on grass
Spitting out a calf
At equal intervals
That trapped beast
Not the real thing
Just an illusion
Bell around her neck
So she can never step
Too far away from her field
Ready to be killed
Without an ounce of awareness

When the aggression keeps taking possession of your soul.
When you anger and entitlements makes you violent.
When you are licensed by the state which supports your hate.
When your crime happens time and time again.
When you blacken and harden your heart against a group.
When you ignore the truth and our youth who cry.
When the sidewalk runs liquid red then dark dry.
How can you expect me not to see the hatred.
How can you expect me not to see the corruptions.
When I wipe back the tears and find my own outrage
And a part of me almost gives into hate.
Seeing bullet hole tear through my brothers cloth’s
Because every man is my brother
And every mother who mourns the loss
Of her child shot by the cops is my sister
When will this madness ever stop.

False friend
No more shall you deceive
To receive our *****’s interest

Seeder of disparate words
Court jester playing king
Folly’s fateful fool

It is destruction that you bring

A shade upon my shroud
A specter upon my soul
To stain the heavy hanging cloth
To burn the priestly robes

Purposes only bound to your own
Yet you claim a saintly cause

Give saint’s reason to blush and pause
Because liars have the best honey words
But share the worst intelligence

Your company makes me
The court of fools for trusting you
I was courting tools
Brushing my teeth
With ****** wool
Fleecing my flock unknowingly

Oh false friend
Fragrant fiend
If it was up to me
You would die slowly
Suffering shallow cuts
And bleed and bleed and bleed

You poor child
Slobbering
Simpering
Whimpering
Drooling mess
Of humanity
Stumbling
Humbling
Mumbling
To yourself
Stuck up
In a stupor
That snuck up
And bit you
War torn
Cloths torn
Impoverished
You poor child
Sick child
Where is your government

I’m too tired
I’m too scared
I’m too busy
To freaking care
My kids need food
I’m to poor
And I’m hungry to
Thats why things
Never change
And you know
It’s true
The struggles
Never end
No time to mend
We seldom get second chances
To start again
Life keeps us on
A broken hamster wheel
Round and round until
We feel
Breathless
And
Powerless

Where is the grief
that should write your face
leaving no trace
of joy’s expression
only rivers of red depression?

Where is the pain
that should be drawn in
till each line ages you
as it should do?

Where is the wisdom achieved
in feeling such grief
in bending to weep
from the sorrows you see?

Where is the hope and conviction born
from seeing the forlorn,
hearing the horrors that sound inhumanity
then standing to see a whole city
raging against such indignities?

Where is the righteous outrage
that you display
for a symbolic piece of cloth
that represents states that owned slaves
or the red white and blue
that you pledge your allegiance to
when it is torn, burned,
stepped on, or frayed?
Shouldn’t that anger be parlayed
into seeking justice
for those who were betrayed
for the ones who went away
to be kissed by the lips of death
and the ones who stayed
trying to make ends meet
for the human beings
who mean so much more to me?

Seriously, where is your ******* human decency?

The river runs both ways
For miles and miles
For so many day
Through years
Through loss
Through love
The cost
Is never high enough
Time racing towards the end
Clock clicking and ticking
Starting once again
Cycling back
Through circular cracks
Through birth and death
Through breathe to breath
The river turning and twisting
Foaming and swishing
Picking up speed, faster and faster
Water rising and receding
Constantly feeding
Into the Oceans
Up to the heavens
Clouds culminating in tears
Fall, softening the earth calming our fears
Back to the beginning
Though I be mortal, I still stand grinning
For the river, I run the risk
Of losing myself of ceasing to exist
Of being forgotten or not being missed
Cutting through landmasses
Picking up passengers as it passes
The river, not eternal will still live longer
Then you or me, with no thought of profit
Swelling the seas with its ***** deposit
Changing the courses of history forever
Oh sweet river, what a wonderful river

If it is a race, then the pace of one set of clouds out does the ones that float above lazily. Smokey dragons cut across Odin’s one good godly eye. The night pursues its cold cool wind muse,
and I cannot lose, because I use this muse so well. I walk the building corner to brick corner unwilling to enter the unyielding nightmare hallways. I do not wish to walk in the white hollow echo chambers, alone and uninspired while the night spirals in lunar delight. I postpone it as long as I can, walking the yellow concrete corners like they are tight high wire. I swerve and struggle to maintain my perfect position, for fear of falling into the black top lava pit. The inside world waits for me like a ravenous beast. Please oh please do not force me to leave the light breeze that brushes my skin gently. Glass and metal doors see me swallowed whole. I did not want to go but now I know this white washed world will be my graveyard fantasy. The red buds on the tree beckon me, but I cannot go back out. The musical clank of metal clips that hang the flags summons me beyond the security doors with their dangerous whipping movements, but I am not allow to explore such freedom. The strangers of varying degrees, shapes, weights, skin tints, hair, and teeth beckons me to question their history. I cannot go out there to the fantastic. No that is a lie. I could if I tried, but I chose to hide in a secure hourly wage paid life. I could leave and let my wanderlust take me where it will. I could go back to Pleasantville, Champaign, Williamsville, Pontiac, Mt. Vernon, and Danville, then go see places I have never been. I could give in to the seductive siren call of landscapes unseen, sounds unheard, and strangers not yet met. Instead I sign my time sheet, walk and repeat, securing nothing. I drive home tired and come back and repeat that as well. I accept the mundane. It is a part of the price I pay for a slice of peace.

He hasn’t got a shot
On this brown town block
Except the one shot
By the stopped cop
Who pulled up hot
Cause the little brown boy
Was playing cops
On this cold stone block

I want to be swollen
with sweet word growing,
impregnated with that which
is made for taking darkness
and transmuting it into
a light of love for all to
fall comfortably into.

I want to take this language,
work and refine those fine
lyrical lines that make minds
turn towards acting kind.

But I have lost the eloquence
that was once my treasured gift,
and all that falls from my lips,
is red and brown drips of ****.
I’ve gone from child optimist
to exhausted adult cynic.

I have lost the fairies and dragons,
unicorns, and gentle care bears
and now dim dreams live there.

Vague impression of once vibrant
brush strokes, and dancing limbs
have giving in to warring men’s
disturbing intentions.
Nightmare too horrible to mention
have become my waking certainty.

But what is really bothering me,
is that it has become much easier
to accept this sick distorted reality.

The canvass of life has become
the splatter art of a billion broken hearts,
and I have mastered the skill
of numbing what I used to feel
in favor of current forms of
self-amusement.

And all the king’s men
Were a cursedly rotten bunch
Took the corrupt out to lunch
While their allies launched
Bombs that eviscerated
The hearts and bodies
Of the foreigners and natives

It is so hot, that I can’t sleep.
I just sit silently sweating.
Till my gross oily skin
Forces me to take
My third or fourth
Shower of the day.

I can’t sleep
But laying in the darkness
Through my partially open door
Someone is passed out
With someone they love
Sleeping on my living room floor

I can’t sleep
So I write what I do not want to keep
Locked up in this hot head
Not impatient or violent
Almost feverish
With summer’s sweltering abuse

I can’t sleep
Because I do not trust
These people I know
Sleeping just beyond
This wooden door
If I opened it more
I am sure it would not be bad
The air is on
But the troubled part
Of my reptile mind
Does not want to risk
Any vulnerability

I can’t sleep
And this is bothering me
My own burden
My own proclivity
To endanger my sanity
Because
Because
Because
**** I don’t know why
I just can’t sleep

She sits stressing,
depression pressing
sharp silver metal
into her skin,

leaves adults stuttering
and wondering
what is so wrong with her,
while looking down with
disappointment.

How strangely that lately
they forget
how intense
it felt
when they were kids.

Its like intentional amnesia
as they try to numb
any primal passions,
dulling their once
delinquent delights,
quelling the yelling curiosity
in favor of
a less passionate
drunken love.

But she has not yet succumbed
to that humdrum
self-inflicted
emotional wound
that is draining
yellow liquid,
oozing
that which is
conflicted
that which
we should be using
to understand
everyone else.

Teenage heartaches
and high school drama,
friendships lost
or changed
drastically,
with all the pain
it leaves,
she is set in
an ocean of confusion.

So, at night she lays her face
in a salt wet pillow case
as she cries
herself to sleep,
instead of ending her week
at the bar down the street
like her parents do
just to get through
their working blues.

Watching videos
from youtube
and reading poetry books,
she still dreams of more,
uses her art to explore
hopes and dreams,
while her parents seem
to exist hopelessly.

When the silence comes
she sits disquieted
as dark thoughts
settle like sandy sediment,
then float up
like all that flotsam
from the wreckage
of her young
sea sailing heart.

Her parent don’t
have a clue
how much she is going through
and sometimes
she doesn’t believe
that they even try to.

She paints for peace
Not world wide
But something inside
Swirls the brushes
Smiles and cusses
As the paint touches the canvass
As her pain is transformed
Or at least temporarily muted

Sometimes we slip through the cracks
fall down a hole or trip into the looking glass
and never manage to find our way back.

Innocence is betrayed as it is parlayed into
the whole growing up thing that
we don’t want to do.

Playmates fade away as we lose yesterday.
Their faces blur then just disintegrate,
along with the games and stories we made.

Time becomes the anchor that weighs us down
as we struggle and drown in deadlines.
Playful pixies dust fantasies are lost to these
important and emerging responsibilities.

Teddy Bear hugs and fairytale love
become the stuff of forgotten hopes,
and with each romantic advance rejected
the dreamer dejected retreats to
the safety of a stale and scheduled reality.

Till the mirror reflects the inner sadness.
Our shoulders slump, skin sags, and wrinkles,
as our eyes lose that sly Peter Pan twinkle.

-2023

I made a monster from flesh and bone
A real live horror harder then stone
I made a beast you would not believe
With the strength and cunning to deceive
A shadow of a man fading away
Bound to be a vampire who burns in the day
Dr. Frankenstien could not compare
To the genius of my own despair
I made a monster and though it is hard to see
I am far more monstrous then creation could be

I sleep but even in my evening slumber
Hear the sounds of summers coming thunder
Cringing and receding from the screeching sound of screaming
Mother earth beseeching while her creatures keep retreating
Scorch marks scar the fragile dirt
Pox and plague for self centered worth
Rain drops heavy as anvils
Hitting ******* my ceiling tiles till
They plunder my vacant eyes robbing them of their wonder
I turn to my tormenter screaming at the thunder
Be gone foul tempest haunt me no more
For I am but a fragile human being and you’re a superior storm
With your vaporous manifestation shocking presentation in fluid form
The storm replied shattering the stillness of my life
With a bolt two feet to the left of me that seared my eyes
Sockets dry the storm left no tears to cry
Singed I sobbed silently heaving and weeping
**** you nature

The dream of love is a sweet ache
Imagining her lovely round face
Safely held in my embrace
Cupped like water in a desert
Such a treasure

To hold her hand
To say I love you
Without expecting her to
Echo my affectionate truth
But feeling my heart elevated
When she smiles back
And says me to

To collapse in
Pleasurable exhaustion
Satisfied with the day’s end
Hugging her
Under the covers
Letting my warmth
Ease from me
To her cold body

To sleep and wake
Seeing her soft face
Knowing we
Will do it all again

For love we seek to unwrite the laws of nature
To wash our hands of old wisdom
To fight through to innovative truths
Discover new perspectives
Challenge the old ways
Decimate dogmas
Devour godly decrees
To set our world free
From the tyranny
Of the stagnant mind

Welcome to the age
of nightmare media
where you can find
the truth between
the lies they’ve
been feeding ya.
Welcome to your
internet prison
that splits your sanity
like a cracked prism.
Welcome to the age of you
cause you don’t care
what your violent leaders do.

No Saint
no sinner
no loving fool
has ever been
as cruel as you.
No saint
No sinner
no loving fool
would ever do
the things you do.

Pressure building
from the bottom up.
Cops keep shooting
our brothers up,
but when people
try to say
that their lives matter
you get *******
blame them
and not the system
that has been
intentionally broken
for as long as we
have been
our own nation.

No Saint
no sinner
no loving fool
has ever been
as cruel as you.
No saint
No sinner
no loving fool
would ever do
the things you do

You’ve been blaming,
the gays,
blaming the immigrants,
blaming the poor,
blaming innocent victims
for the problems you created.
I guess it is easier to hate
then to find the truth
and risk being hated.
So, you celebrate
how great it is
to live in a place
that keeps arming
our police with
military grade weapons
in case free citizens
give the rich grief.

No Saint
no sinner
no loving fool
has ever been
as cruel as you.
No saint
No sinner
no loving fool
would ever do
the things you do

Are we better together
or do we need to be separated
so that white privilege and power
can no longer discriminate?
I hope that you know that
I am still searching
for a better way
before America comes to
shoot me down to.

Farmer’s Daughter
Her withered face
Not aged with grace
But balding scalp
Liver spots
Missing teeth
Like missing thoughts
White wrinkled flesh
Disappearing
Tiny goblin form
Hidden beneath the sheets

No more hunger
Only suffering
It’s no slumber
For in slumber
We find dreams
Rich with the complexities
Of our many identities
Mirrored masks of agony
Pure flights of unconnected fantasy
Inconsistent

But it’s persistent
Life interrupted
And never continued
The only ease
Is its release
From consciousness
Pain, Joy, pleasure
Apathy, anguish
Epiphanies

Dead siblings
Dead husband
Fading memories
With all their grief
Let them go
Let it go
Let it all slip away

I know it is not much, but I give to the people on the side of the road. If I have an apple or three, a couple of bananas, avocadoes, or anything that I can afford to pass on without making it so I do not have something to eat that day, anything in my car at the time that is not already been chewed on is fair game for my compassion, in passing it on to someone who might not have had anything to eat.
I do not feel pride for this actions, because to many times I rush by in a hurry to somewhere else, or all I have is my lunch for work. It hurts me to know that this stranger on the side of the road may not get anything to eat.
So, here are two things that rub me the wrong way. Firstly, when people think someone else will help. It is so easy just to walk, or drive by cause you think the next guy will help, but what if they don’t? What if that extra apple that you ended up tossing away anyways could have assuaged someone’s pain even for an hour or so. What if despite not being enough to fill that person’s stomach up your kindness was the light that slightly brightened an otherwise painful and lonely day? Secondly, when people say that this person is probably trying to scam you. So what if they are, their potential deceit will not lessen my overall desire to be compassionate, because what if they next person I would have helped truly needed it and I refused because I was jaded? Hell, how about if that person that you were so suspicious of was truly needy? This fog of distrust of those in need has clouded our communities, cities, states, and this country that some claim they desire to make great again.
Maybe my heart bleeds a little too much because I have been hungry, and alone before. But haven’t you ever been hungry, scared, lonely, or in pain? Why dismiss the suffering of others when you know pain? It is our capacity for creativity, and compassion that makes us great. It is the art of reading, seeing, or merely thinking that allows us to switch places and to a degree feel what other’s feels that makes us human. Please find that part of yourself and once you do, do not allow that part of yourself to be lost.

Little boy blasting,
out on the streets rapping,
while other children keep clapping.

It’s as beautiful site.

Living amidst destruction
but trying to construct
an art form from love
because adults
in power haven't stepped up.

Little girl marching,
rigidly standing against
environmental destruction
another young leader of the people.

It’s as beautiful site.

But this shouldn't have to be
the fight of their young lives.
Why are they out there
trying to save our lives
when we had so many
generations to stand up
and do what’s right?

One grown *** idiot
is barely living up
to the ideals he believes in,
leaves the struggle
to the children
who seem to have more
heart instead of him.

While he writes celebrating
their success and greatness,
he settles in to accept this mess
because he doesn't really believe
it will get any better than this.

They paired us
In Paris

Dreamed up
Things to scare us

But the poets
Left for France
Because they could
Afford it

If I could have been
Gone with them
They would not have
To expatriate me

No need to separate me
From this American family
Of consumerism and greed

I would have preferred
To be in love in Paris

I push back
against
the frothing
phlegm
that clogs my throat
and drains down
my cleft chin.

I push back
against
the razor
that has been
like a pendulum
of madness
and human
suffering
cutting left to right.

I push back
against
bad influences
with a few exception
because a little bad
ain’t so bad
and you gotta get mad
to change that
which keeps pushing back
against your desire
to be a decent human being.

Life seldom grants us absolutes
Before the truth of reason
Comparison was treason
Ignoring the fact
That some have and some lack
Was common practice

Justice was lackluster
Politicians and business men

But now with all the information we have
Reason and comparison should be elevated
Inequalities should be seriously debated
Not with flowery words which inform so little
But conceal so much, but with science
Because facts find hidden truths revealed
And there is seldom to much truth

Not my biological daughter but
there is a well of
overflowing
pride and love.

Little teenage poet,
tiny bookworm
like me;

I remember when
you were barely
four or three
and I would read
stories to you
before you
went to sleep.

“Another one,
another one,
another one,
please.”

Then just as I
was about to leave
smiling and saying
go to sleep
you would offer
to read to me.

Little smiling devil
how could I resist,
“just one more story
then to bed after it.”

Every day strange crafts were made
to keep the crazy kids creative
saner, active, and engaged.

There were projects with weird shades
of sand that swirled together
in green, blue, and purple hues
of mystic and psychedelic colors.

Hands, wet with a white gluey substance
made plaster plates of pure porcelain colors
which  cracked and crumbled
when tossed or dropped.

There were
popsicle stick structures,
small huts or larger houses,
and cereal box tiny toy car garages
that could be combined
to create a two story fantasy.

Each morning and night we children would take
strange pills that had a horrible taste
while finger paints played out painful portraits
of those institutionalized day.

It is not a surprising revelation
That the devastation
We face in this nation
Is of our own making
We wear the emperor’s
Empty clothing
Naked without knowing
How hard the wind is blowing
Genitalia showing
And we would be ashamed
If any brains remained
But this is the live fast age
Were we work hard to play
Struggle to survive and barely get paid
A living wage

Is it my fault
That you cannot
Follow me into
The darkest rooms

Failing to see
The click clacking
Of death tracking
Innocence

Failing to feel
Parallels of pain
Emotions you can’t name

Am I to blame
Because I softened my words
To be heard
Whispered
Instead of yelling
Smiled and joked
Instead of crying

So you kept lying
To yourself
Measuring value
As an integer of wealth
Check marked
Your vacant heart
Filling infinity
With nothing

Is it my fault
Because
I did not argue harder
For the sane way
Did not strain
Enough to say
Please stay
With me
And our shared humanity

Now your boots
Sound of conformity
A terrible drum
Poking me
And I can see
Where this beat
Leads
But you will not
Believe me

So when you reach for
The cold and deadly knife
Stuck in the heart of humanity
To pull it out
And bleed out
When you finally see and agree
Will you blame or forget me

Why should she want a love
That says it owns her
And the only thing that matters
Is losing herself in it
Why can’t she have a love
That grows with her
And in its’ wonder finds herself
Growing to

I like this poem. I get the humorous part. However, I do not think we need to be mad to be great poets. I think the world is incurious and impregnated with the madness of indifference, and the really good writer observe, absorb, collecting disparate perspectives, run subconscious scenarios in their heads, and project the closest approximation of other peoples lives and feelings.

My inner child yells at me playfully
Hey did you go off and forget about me
I have been sitting here all week
While you were away at work
While you were brushing your teeth
Pushing those buttons or falling asleep
Why would you go out and forget about me
I reply in kind that I had not forgotten him
Life has become faster and faster than
I am able to keep up with
So there are thing I have to sacrifice
He pouts a bit and sob but why
Why I sigh because I am a man
And as a man I must do what I can
To make the world a better and safer place
For everyone in the whole human race
This means that work must be done
Before we make time for fun
Again he pouts and sob but why
Why because no matter how hard I try
There is always more that need doing
If I am going to get the promotion I must be a shoe win
What is a shoe win he says with a laughing grin
I meant to say a sure thing
But we both get distracted because it’s so nice outside

Time may be linear
Space may be infinite
Even though we think the limits curve
Universes growing within themselves
Swirling around each other
Space is not an ocean of stars
The oceans are space reflected
In darkness looking down we can see up
But looking up we only see up
Tiny jewels in the infinite
Sending light
In light’s own years
DNA makes mistakes
Splits and combines
Creates new forms
Slight variations
Copying errors
That got us here
Evolution is not directed
Not inspected by the locals
Patterns may be
May form and disappear
But not everything has to have a reason

The rat king
Sleeping in sewage
Wasting clean water
Cause profit is better

King of the rodents
Though I would prefer
The rodents are better
Than the man of manure

Garbage maker
Weather changer
Spin doctor

Death dealer
Conscious free
Will live to be
The death of me
And all I love
In our society

It was marble mess,
shattered stone
and ****** distress.

It was so confusing.
If you are asking them
they’ll say that
it was a tragic accident
that left those men
trembling.

Button pushing
tragedy
unreality,
because in this piece
I turn fiction
into poetry.

I take the normal responses
I spent a lifetime observing,
use strange alchemy,
and make short
snapshot stories;

Shift and distort
magic metaphors
to make them contort
to what I believe
is a truth
others need to see.

Thus, this was a calamity,
crowd forming
a fake flock of family
making a community
from a small sub-section
of humanity.

To see some
unnamed thing
is not what I am pointing to.

To understand how we
can share a reaction
then after that
still walk away
from the unity
of human suffering
stumbling back to
our shacks to do
what led to
the same sorrow
we just viewed.

Tomorrow
is today
and they
will not think
about the pain
so, I will not bother
to name it.

Like life
there is seldom
a satisfactory end
or a reasonably
easy origin
to understand
all that keeps
happening.

How can I live with the kind
who pillage and ****
take their mistakes
and make up our minds
concealing their crimes
behind rhetoric of hate?

How can I live with the blind
who follow such swine
drink the poisonous wine
that puts us behind the times
when we should have been,
so far ahead of them?

How can I live in such a state
waiting for this evil to abate
knowing that what I do
does not sway the populace to the truth?

If I thought that with my life
I could buy back the light
defeat the dark knights
that rush to decide
out of greed and pride
how we should ruin our lives;

I would gladly swallow a bullet
bite a pill
swipe the razor,
till there is nothing left to feel.
I’d empty my vessel
if I thought
I could save this lot.

Preacher
give me
a practical
parable,
a pleasant metaphor
for
something deep
and meaningful.

Preacher
pass on
some wild
wisdom
that I was
sadly lacking,
please go on
unpacking
with unpracticed ease
whatever lie
you please
wrapped up
in your
bibleleese
bubbling
*******.

I know you’re
very content
with it.

So, preach away,
but do not
expect me
to swallow it.

The politicians
are corporate shills
who take our taxes
to pay their bills,
then let greedy businessmen
keep their pockets filled
not caring who gets killed
by the bombs of
the war profiteers.

Her heart was just pumping scar tissue
Thumping dry red dust
A reflection of last night’s affection
Pain pointing to another *******
Skin so thin but opaque
Raw nerves and edginess
Desire lacking eagerness
Child in a monster’s nest
Two packs of smokes a day
One bottled downed and another one saved
Could have been a beauty queen
But now she’s just a dried up pruney thing

I gathered the ladders
One after another I strung them together
Planted their base
Like a bed of wooden flowers
And set them up towards the heavens
Till the top pierced
The white billowy clouds
And when I got to the top
The clouds didn’t stop
They went on like
A white winter wasteland
But I never found the place
Where the human race
Settles after they die

The tear drops don’t stop
Keep leaving wet spots
And I say thank you

For years my fears
Lay hidden in the shadow
Pill bottles I swallowed
I so I wouldn’t have to feel
Something deep and real
Bleeding until I was numb
So now that I can feel again
I am grateful

Even if my eyes blurred
From something I heard
Something that made me disturbed
As the poet preaches to me
Not about divinity
But about our humanity
It reaches deep in me
Stirring remnants of dead flesh
Turning my cold body into a living thing
This living being
Sings
With love
Not ******
Or Demeaning
But with meaning
Returning word for word
Like a blast of healing rain
Washing away the last stain
Till apathy no longer reigns
And I am human again
So I say with joy and with tears
Thank you for giving me
A few more years
Of my own humanity

The mirror man stood
Where I now stand
Deeply staring
Into my darkness
Eyes peering
Into the heartless
Full of wonder
And I despised
How his eyes
Told so many lies
Hopeful heart harkening
To some bright new beginning

The butcher’s blade
The blacksmith’s hammer
Tools of the trade
That I could handle
I smashed the mirror
Thus was he shattered into
A thousand jagged pieces
And in revenge
He cut and sliced me
Bled me violently
Until I needed a hundred little stitches